


Falling Coconuts

by Skaapsteker



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Heck Yeah Minor Characters!, Musical References, very brief allusion to drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 05:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13991535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaapsteker/pseuds/Skaapsteker
Summary: Marsh and Coconut make for good roommates.





	Falling Coconuts

Marsh watches as his roommate climbs into the hammock strung up near the window, his backpack flopping out of his hand and thudding onto the floor.  
“I sure hope there wasn’t anything breakable in there,” Marsh notes, thumbing through his math textbook.  
“Nah, just binders and books.” Coconut’s voice is surprisingly deep, considering his skinny frame. “When do we eat? I’m starving.”  
Marsh smiles. “Ha, me too. Unfortunately, dinner’s at six.” _At least me and my roomie have something in common_.  
“Aw.” Coconut turns over onto his back, hazel eyes on nothing in particular.  
“But _fortunately_ ,” Marsh continues, bending over and pulling out a paper bag from one of the pockets in his own backpack, “I’ve got snacks.”  
“Oh!” Coconut looks over the edge, hammock shifting dangerously far to the right.  
“Two granola bars, plus one,” Marsh smirks slightly, “ _coconut_ bar.”  
“I don’t actually like coconut. That would be like eating myself. And that would be creepy.”  
“Point taken. But you’re not actually a coconut, are you?” Marsh tosses one of the granola bars across the room, his mildly-unfortunately-named friend catching it in an outstretched hand.  
“You know what I mean…” says Coconut, ripping open the wrapper with a faint crackling noise.  
“How’s the rainforest? What’s it like living there?” asks Marsh, opening his own bar. He’s always been curious about forests.  
“It’s hot, it’s sunny, and everything is colourful.” Coconut licks his lips. “And the fruit tastes even better than this.”  
“Very informative.”  
“Yeah, I don’t usually pay that much attention? To what’s around me? Do you?”  
“I was basically a street kid. Connect the dots.”  
Brief silence.  
“What about you? What’s your swampy city like?”  
“It’s not a city exactly - it’s more of a town. Diamond Spray, where I was born and raised.” Marsh closes his eyes, allowing the images to grow incredibly vivid. “Imagine streets of tightly-packed houses with wide stony roads in between. The swamp’s at the northern edge, so it’s barely part of town at all, but you can tell it’s there - everything is damp all the time, and a large chunk of town always smells slightly musty.” There was more to life in Diamond Spray, so much more, but he isn’t quite ready to spill it all to someone he’d met just this morning.  
Coconut wrinkles his nose. “Doesn’t sound nice.” He lazily tosses the wrapper on the floor, swallowing the last of his bar.  
“Hey, it’s better than it sounds!” Marsh feels himself getting defensive. “You just don’t know because you’re not from there.”  
“I trust you on that.”  
And with that profound statement, Coconut rolls over and closes his eyes.  
(Marsh ends up having to shake him awake for the much-awaited dinner.)

Coconut signs up for the ukulele club on the first Friday of the school year. He’s pretty good at it, too - on a few occasions Marsh walks into his dorm to find Coconut casually strumming old songs, stuff like “Yellow Submarine” or “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”.  
Thinking about this a few weeks into the school year, Marsh suddenly realizes that he hasn’t introduced his roommate to his favourite band yet. (Does Coconut even _know_ any music made after 1998?)  
He can’t think of any way to do it subtly. Outside of the physical sneaking-and-tiptoeing sense, subtlety is not Marsh’s strongest suit. He ponders a few options before deciding he just doesn’t care about being subtle.  
And so, when Coconut enters the room after his club, he finds Marsh dancing (well, more like shuffling and nodding since the room isn’t very large), Gorillaz flowing through the air.  
“Like it?” Marsh asks, shoulders swaying as Damon Albarn-slash-2D sings about how much he needs a gun ‘cause all he does is dance.  
Coconut breaks into a wide smile.  
“Yeah!” He sets his ukulele on Marsh’s bed (and for once he’s not going to be told off) and joins in the little impromptu shuffle-dance party.  
They’re almost at the end of Demon Days when Marsh remembers what he’s been planning to ask. He waits until the end of the song, then walks to the table and turns off his phone.  
“I showed you what I like. Now, what kind of music do you like?”  
“A lot. Sheavy is my fave.”  
“Never heard of them.”  
“Here, lemme show you.” Coconut reaches into his jean pocket and pulls out an iPod that Marsh has had no idea existed. “This one’s called ‘Born In a Daze’.”  
He presses ‘play’, and Marsh’s ears are met with the chillest metal song he’s ever heard.  
And then Coconut begins to sing along.  
“ _‘I look for all the answers,’_ ” he sings in his baritone, “ _‘that you can’t find. I search the sky for reason,’_ ”  
Normally, Marsh hates when people sing along to something he’s trying to listen to. But not this time. Coconut is just that good.  
“ _‘Now I find you’re…born in a daze, born in a daze, born in a daze-_ ”  
His voice blends perfectly with the music, and Marsh thinks that maybe he should suggest singing club to his roommate.

Marsh still misses his big sister Crane, and he always will. But some people make it better, soothing his grief and sense of loss.  
His remaining siblings are such people, of course. So is his father, when he’s not working long shifts. But in spite of their growing closeness, Marsh is still a little surprised when Coconut officially joins their ranks.  
It happens when he’s sitting at his desk in the space between homework and dinner. His mind wanders, as it is wont to do, and it chooses memories of Crane as a destination.  
He remembers her voice, her smile, her laugh. He remembers games of Scrabble with her and Reed that stretched late into the evening - Marsh may not have been as good with words as them, but the twins would slack off just for him, for the sake of being even. He remembers days with Dad and his siblings on the swamp, when Crane would pluck weird bugs out of the water to impress him. He remembers the times she helped him with his homework, and the times she told him scary stories about bog monsters out to get him, and the times she showed up at his class graduations (and vice versa). He remembers, and he knows he’ll never see her again, all because of some piece of utter _scum_ -  
“Hey,” says Coconut, leaning onto Marsh’s shoulder. “You ‘kay?”  
“Does it look like I’m okay?” Marsh spits back, suddenly aware of tears welling in his eyes.  
“Whoah, sorry,” Coconut leans back, putting his hands up in front of him. “What’s wrong?”  
Marsh takes a deep breath. He’s barely mentioned this to anyone, save for his family (obviously) and the counsellor he sees every other Monday, but for some reason, Coconut now seems an oddly fitting person to share his grief with.  
And so he tells him all his memories.  
When he’s done, Coconut wraps him up in a deep hug.  
“That’s so sad. I wish I could’ve been there.”  
Even if he’d been there, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything. But Marsh accepts his words anyways.

The next day, when Marsh returns from remedial science class, Coconut hands him a feather.  
“Uh, thanks,” says Marsh, quickly checking the pupils of his roommate’s eyes (they’re not unusually blown, he deduces, which makes this gift even stranger) before looking back down at the feather. It’s very long, almost as long as his forearm, and a greyish-white colour. “Where’d you get this?”  
“I found it near the pond at the edge of school property. You know, where the cranes hunt.”  
_Oh._  
Marsh goes to his table, opens the drawer with a creak, and carefully sets the feather inside.  
Then he goes back to Coconut and gives his roommate a hug.  
And from then on, Marsh and Coconut are truly the best of friends. They eat lunch together almost every day, and Coconut joins the singing club on Marsh’s request, and Marsh finally gets a good girlfriend by Coconut’s recommendation.  
And sometimes, they just lay down underneath a tree, watching the clouds and talking about the world, and the truth of their friendship washes over Marsh like pebbles rolling downhill.


End file.
